HERO OF A VOLCANO.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4744, 29 August 1924, Page 2

HERO OF A VOLCANO.

STIRRING TALE OF KILAUEA. MAN ON HEAVING LAVA. In the middle of the Pacific Ocean a young man was recently saved froma terrible death by a brave deed. The young man is Mr Geoffrey H. Bushby, and, says a London paper, he was one of 360 people who were sailing round the world on the Empress of Canada. The vessel stopped at Hawaii and the company went ashore ro look at the famous crater of Kilauea. Most of them stood on the outer edge, looking into the enormous hollow of .the crater. Mr Bushby, not content with seeing at a distance, had climbed down a cliff 535 ft deep into the cup of the volcano. With him was Mr Augustus D. Curtis, of Chicago, who stopped on a ledge to take photographs. Mr Bushby went on a little farther, and crossed the quiet lava beds to peer into the very mouth of the volcano.

Suddenly a terrific growl rose out of the volcano’s heart. A cloud of smoke arose, and after it came a sheet of fire, its glow filling the crater and its heat rising to the outer edge, where the 300 tourists stood in horror. As they stared down they saw the lava bed begin to heave, and across it they saw, staggering, the form of Mr Bushby. ' Over these waves of solid matter, sinking ami rising under his feet, with a sheet of red light, it seemed, thrown round him, the young man made his way as best he might. Before he got to the cliff he was oveicome with smoke, and he foil at the foot of the rocky wall. Five hundred feet of hard climbing lay between him and safety. Behind him fell the first sh.owers bf lava.

The spectators, peering through the smoke, then saw a sight that made their hearts stand still. Mr Curtis, a man nearly 60‘, was climbing down this terrible wall. He reached the foot of the cliff, lifted Bushby, and began to climb back again, with the smoke and fire growing thicker about him.

For some distance this brave man carried the unconscious figure up the cliff. Before he had got half-way, two young men, one a captain in the NOl- - army and the other a Hawaiian soldier, had scrambled down to meet him. One took Mr Bushby and the other helped the gallant old gentleman up into safety again. The Empress of Canada, carrying with her one of the bravest of heroes, sailed away, with the volcano, an angry, spitting monster, on her horizon line.